Latest update: The search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may be forced to re-investigate the possibility that the passenger jet with 239 on board landed, according to new reports.

A report in the Financial Express, quoting The New Strait Times has quoted sources close to the probe that the investigation teams are considering revisiting the possibility that the plane did not crash into the ocean and had landed safely at an unknown location.

“The thought of it landing somewhere else is not impossible, as we have not found a single debris that could be linked to MH370. However, the possibility of a specific country hiding the plane when more than 20 nations are searching for it, seems absurd,” the sources told the NST.

This latest report will once again put the spotlight on the island of Deigo Garcia and the conspiracy theory that the small atoll is the most likely spot the plane could have landed.

It’s the kind of news that families of passengers of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will dread, but as long as the search goes on in vain cyclone or not, the fact is, all options are on the table.

According to a report on website asiaone.com, quoting the New Straits Times, members of the International Investigation Team (IIT) in charge of the search are considering the possibility that the search is going on in the wrong area.

Quoting sources within the team based in Kuala Lumpur, the possibility that the jet had landed somewhere else, instead of ending up in the southern Indian Ocean, is now back on the table.

"The thought of it landing somewhere else is not impossible, as we have not found a single debris that could be linked to MH370,” the report said.

As the remote controlled submarine was expected to complete its ninth mission on Tuesday, four days after the coordination centre gave the five-day timeframe, the centre confirmed that it had covered about two thirds of its target search area and had found "no contacts of interest".

The dawning prospect of the Bluefin-21, initially seen as the search's most promising aid, completing its mission without a trace of the missing aircraft has authorities under pressure to determine which strategy to take next.

The daily search involving some two dozen nations is already shaping up to be the most expensive in aviation history.